The Petersburg Number

Mobile application to get connected to a random citizen of Saint-Petersburg

The Petersburg Number is a special project developed in cooperation with Megafon Company and Victoria Evdokimova. The idea behind the project is to help people living in other Russian cities (or even other countries of the world) to connect with random St.-Petersburg locals and talk to them about anything — life and weather in the city, places to visit and food to taste.

While considering whether to join the Petersburg Number project, we did not view the business value of the project as a priority. More important was the chance to become a part of a socially significant project that connects people and enables them to communicate. Besides, the Petersburg Number provides other city dwellers with a unique possibility to find out more about manifold culture and special mindset of the people living in Saint-Petersburg. On the other hand, Petersburg locals can now become a live voice of the city and describe it in the way they want, without clichés and standard city guide phrases.

Using the service is easy — if you want to discover the way Saint-Petersburg and its citizens live and you are not a local, dial +7 812 930 1703 and get connected to a random Petersburger. Please remember about the time zone, it is GMT+3 for Saint-Petersburg. You are welcome to call at any time, but be aware that the locals may be asleep.

Every time you dial the number +7 812 930 1703 the switch board connects you to a different person, so there is very little chance you will get connected twice to the same Saint-Petersburg local. As a result, you can get a collection of opinions and recommendations provided by the locals.

If you live in Saint-Petersburg and cannot wait to tell everyone about your beloved city just download the free app on AppStore or Google Play and switch on call reception. Calls can be switched off in case you do not want to be disturbed.

No phone number is displayed on a smartphone screen, either on the caller’s or the recipient’s phone. The only thing both sides can see is the Petersburg number +7 812 930 1703. The call will be charged at international rates.

The mobile app development for iOS and Android took us about a month. The tech part of the project was also inspiring. We used Ruby on Rails for the back-end.

Taking into account the app integration with the calls management system by Megafon we implemented the built-in calls analytics feature. We also added automatic disabling of inactive numbers to filter them out of the calls queue.

To enhance the efficiency of user analysis function we implemented an adjustable advertising block management tool. At the very beginning of the development process we provided the possibility to scale the app to add more cities to the project.

The Petersburg Number project is moving forward and will soon support other Russian cities.